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Which game was most constrained by console power, in your opinion, and why?

Metanoia Prime

Metanoia Prime

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,153
California
Whether it was limits to AI programming, number of colors in the sprites, level complexity, or whatever, which game do you see as a clear example of "they needed better hardware," and why do you think so? Anything immediately come to mind as being limited by the console's horsepower?

And don't say, "every game ever." Yes, we know that every game could benefit from stronger hardware, but which game do you see as being "almost there, but could have done better next gen?"
 
zombiejames

zombiejames

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,918
Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2, without a doubt. They had that system doing about a dozen things it had no business doing.
 
Ryouji Gunblade

Ryouji Gunblade

Avenger
Oct 26, 2017
4,151
California
Combat Evolved comes to mind. Wildlife, open world, even that damn usable energy sword didn't make it to the final product. Infinite is going to be cool.
 
JoDa

JoDa

Member
Jan 12, 2018
558
I remember vanquish advertising its unlocked framerate to ensure fast paced gameplay but consoles could simply not take advantage of this at all
 

Deleted member 37011

Banned
Dec 29, 2017
2,807
All 2D arcade fighting games from the 1990's released on SNES, Genesis, and Playstation. Those games suffered tremendously. But we played the hell out of them.
 
Camstun187

Camstun187

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,166
China
Wii

Good Developers chose to work on better projects for PS3 and 360, leaving the Wii left with masterpieces from Nintendo, a fair amount of excellent games from close third parties, and a shit ton of shovelware from no-names.

If the Wii had been as powerful as the 360 and PS3, it would have have been even more of a beatdown, and Wii would have lasted another 2-3 years, followed by the Switch.

Instead, the Wii being barely more powerful than the XBOX did what looked to be irreparable harm to Nintendo's brand when the Wii U launched, leaving Nintendo behind in the tech game.

Time will tell if holding out on tech and choosing a slow climb was the right call.

In many ways, I like to see the past 10 years and the next five as an elongated version of The Tortoise And The Hare.

EDIT: ah darn, misread the OP.
 
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MetroidPrimeRib

MetroidPrimeRib

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,964
Shadow of Mordor on PS360 should have NEVER shipped.

I'm pretty sure that shitshow and how it was released with so little fanfare that people forget it even came out is the reason why Mortal Kombat X's PS360 version was quietly canned and no one cared.
 
Ehoavash

Ehoavash

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,232
Zelda Skyward sword

Hardware limitations caused the reuse of various assets...too much infact.
 
Crayon

Crayon

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,580
It was Metal Gear Solid one. It had a forward in the manual that said something along the lines of "I was just messing around before. We had to wait till now to deliver the true vision of metal gear."

Edit: Wait duh no. That means it was metal gear 1 and 2.
 
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SRO7

SRO7

Member
Nov 30, 2017
523
Didn't Turok on the N64 had a lot of fps issues and had to heavily rely on fog to improve performance?
 
HyGogg

HyGogg

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,495
I think the people saying N64 games need a little perspective.

Some of the early open-world games did crazy things with really limited hardware and dev resources. Mercenary, for example, was a fully-3D open-world game with vehicles (and the ability to steal them; get pursued by cops), an open city, interior exploration, multiple puzzle solutions, etc, but it was trapped on an 8-bit sytem, so it looked like this:
8263.jpg
 
Onebadlion

Onebadlion

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,189
Perfect Dark. Absolutely pointless without the expansion pack. It was too much for the N64 to handle.
 
Amiibola

Amiibola

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,255
Can't think of any single game, save for some intergenerational games obviously designed for the most powerful one

But every game is designed with the hardware they're going to run, so there's not a single power starved game in my book

My alternative opinion is that every single game is power starved unless running on a PC
 
Chopchop

Chopchop

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,171
I know this is super old, but R-Type DX on the GBC. The hardware couldn't handle some parts of it, to the detriment of the gameplay.

I remember getting stuck on a particular boss for a long time because the game struggled with the number of bullets the boss was putting on screen, to the point where it started removing the sprites of old bullets without removing their hurtboxes. So I kept dying to invisible bullets. I had to clear the boss by watching out for bullets disappearing, then mentally tracking them in my head to make sure I didn't get in their way, because the fucking game stopped bothering to draw them.
 
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PassiveObserver

PassiveObserver

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,176
X-Men Vs. Street Fighter on PS1. Why did they even release it in that state? It's barely the same game on Playstation, losing the 2-on-2 tag team mechanic and loads of animation frames. Especially when the Saturn port was near arcade-perfect with the 4MB cart.
 
Deleted member 4359

Deleted member 4359

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,259
Ehoavash said:
Zelda Skyward sword

Hardware limitations caused the reuse of various assets...too much infact.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Also looks like shit on HD screens - visually it's great but the art style crashes so heavily when upscaled it's really a bummer, could have been a great Wii U game but I imagine this was a case of the title being a long dev cycle and a lack of games for the Wii then.
 
Mr.Deadshot

Mr.Deadshot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,285
M.A.G.

I loved it and played the shit out of it. But this game really, really deserves a second chance on PS4 with a stable frame rate and good image quality.

Too bad Sony isn't looking into their amazing last-gen multiplayer-games. They could gather a new fanbase with a solid F2P or low-cost HD-release. Stuff like Killzone 2+3, Resistance 2, MAG, Warhawk and Twisted Metal.
 
panda-zebra

panda-zebra

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,735
The original Destiny for ps4 & xb1 - constrained by the power of the previous generations machines. It should never have been on them by the time it released, but it was all too late and the game was held back severely by old, limited consoles.
 

Empress of ice cream

Member
Dec 2, 2017
1,544
All of Ueda's games.

ICO was meant to be a PS1 game. SotC was so bad that even I noticed it and I usually don't give a hoot about frame rate. TLG had issues as well.
 

Gasoline

Member
Jun 14, 2018
67
Mass Effect 2 had to have the story structure changed so you get a certain companion at the end because of the limitation of DVDs.

Deus Ex Invisible War also comes to mind, with those incredibly tiny levels.
 
ASaiyan

ASaiyan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,228
Final Fantasy XV is a pretty bad recent one. Slowdown, dithering, screen tearing...in certain areas playing the game literally made me feel ill, lol. It runs fine on my new high-end gaming PC. But the game was clearly not meant to run on base PS4.
 
TheWooniestWoona

TheWooniestWoona

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,777
Doom on the Saturn comes to mind.

The annoying part is that it didn't have to be that way. The devs wanted to take advantage of the Saturn's unique hardware, but in the end they were forced to switch to a software based renderer, which the Saturn wasn't fast enough to pull off.
 
Poison Jam

Poison Jam

Member
Nov 6, 2017
2,984
There's different ways of looking at this. In one way, Shadow of The Colossus was writing checks the Playstation 2 couldn't cash. But the thing is, the developers knew exactly what hardware they had to work with. So it feels a bit unfair blame the system.

But then, it's almost impossible to think of any examples that doesn't fall into this category.
 

Deleted member 11018

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,419
Mig 29 and other flight simulators on the Sega Megadrive... they ran at 1 to 4 fps.
They were ambitious, but clearly the hardware was not ready for this.
The limited control of a digital pad meant that gameplay's input method was not ideal either.
 
Jessie

Jessie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,921
Ass Creed Unity came out a console generation too early, honestly. The number of NPCs was too much for consoles to handle. But I appreciate their ambition.
 

Deleted member 9241

Oct 26, 2017
10,416
Probably Starfox on the SNES. The framerate was seriously awful, but the ambition was admirable.
 
RooMHM

RooMHM

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
277
ITT defend games that run like shit. Aka team ICO games etc.
Adapting is part of the job.
 
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